Then, in 1869, the first diamond was found on a farm possessed by an Orange Free State Boer, and in 1871 Nicholas Waterboer, claiming possession of the land, and making his claim good to British colonial intellects, executed a treaty ceding to the British the whole district of Griqualand West,—a tract of land about half as big as Scotland, containing 17,800 square miles. There had by this time grown up a vast diamond seeking population which was manifestly in want of government. Waterboer himself could certainly do nothing to govern the free, loudspeaking, resolute body of men which had suddenly settled itself upon the territory which he claimed. Though he considered himself to be Captain of the Country, he would have been treated with no more respect than any other Hottentot had he shown himself at the diggings. Yet he no doubt felt that such a piece of luck having turned up on what he considered to be his own soil, he ought to get something out of it. So he made a treaty, ceding the country to Great Britain in 1871. In 1872 his stipend was raised to £250,—in 1873 to £500; and an agreement has now been made, dated I think in October 1877, increasing this to £1,000 a year, with an allowance of £500 to his widow and children after his death. It was upon this deed that we took possession of Griqualand West with all its diamonds; but the Orange Free State at once asserted its claim,—based on present possession and on the purchase of Adam Kok’s rights.
I think I shall not be contradicted when I say that amidst such a condition of things it is very hard to determine where is precisely the truth and what perfect abstract justice would have demanded. I cannot myself feel altogether content with the title to a country which we have bought from a Hottentot for an allowance of £1,000 a year with a pension of £500 to his wife and children. Much less can I assent to the title put forward by the Free State in consequence of their negotiation with Adam Kok’s Agent. The excuse for annexation does not in my mind rest on such buyings and sellings. I have always felt that my sense of justice could not be satisfied as to any purchase of territory by civilized from uncivilized people,—first because the idea of the value of the land is essentially different in the minds of the two contracting parties; and secondly because whatever may be the tribal customs of a people as to land I cannot acknowledge the right of a Chieftain to alienate the property of his tribe,—and the less so when the price given takes the form of an annuity for life to one or two individuals.
The real excuse is to be found in that order of things which has often in the affairs of our Colonies made a duty clear to us, though we have been unable to reconcile that duty with abstract justice. When we accepted the cession of the Province in 1871 the Free State was no doubt making an attempt to regulate affairs at the Diamond Fields; but it was but a feeble attempt. The Republic had not at its back the power needed for saying this shall be law, and that shall be law, and for enforcing the laws so enacted. And if the claim of Great Britain to the land was imperfect, so was that of the Free State. The persons most interested in the matter prayed for our interference, and felt that they could live only under our Government. There had no doubt been occupation after a kind. A few Boers here and there had possessed themselves of the lands, buying them by some shifty means either from the Natives or from those who alleged that they had purchased them from the Natives. And, as I have said, taxes were levied. But I cannot learn that any direct and absolute claim had ever been made to national dominion,—as is made by ourselves and other nations when on a new-found shore we fly our national flags. The Dutch had encroached over the border of the Griquas and then justified their encroachment by their dealings with Adam Kok. We have done much the same and have justified our encroachment by our dealings with Nicholas Waterboer. But history will justify us because it was essentially necessary that an English speaking population of a peculiarly bold and aggressive nature should be made subject to law and order.
The accusation against our Colonial Office of having stolen the Diamond Fields because Diamonds are peculiarly rich and desirable can not hold water for an instant. If that were so in what bosom did the passion rise and how was it to be gratified? A man may have a lust for power as Alexander had, and Napoleon,—a lust to which many a British Minister has in former days been a prey; but, even though we might possibly have a Colonial Secretary at this time so opposed in his ideas to the existing theories and feelings of our statesmen as to be willing to increase his responsibilities by adding new Colonies to our long list of dependencies, I cannot conceive that his ambition should take the shape of annexing an additional digging population. Has any individual either claimed or received glory by annexing Griqualand West? From the operations of such a Province as the Diamond Fields it is not the mother country that reaps the reward, but the population whether they be English, Dutch, or Americans,—the difficult task of ruling whom the mother country is driven to assume.
It is known to all Englishmen who have watched the course of our colonial history for the last forty years that nothing can be so little pleasant to a Secretary of State for the Colonies as the idea of a new Colony. Though they have accrued to us, one after the other, with terrible rapidity there has always been an attempt made to reject them. The Colonial Secretary has been like an old hen to whose large brood another and another chick is ever being added,—as though her powers of stretching her wings were unlimited. She does stretch them, like a good old mother with her maternal instincts, but with most unwilling efforts, till the bystander thinks that not a feather of protection could be given to another youngling. But another comes and the old hen stretches herself still wider,—most painfully.
New Zealand is now perhaps the pet of our colonial family; and yet what efforts were made when Lord Normanby and afterwards when Lord John Russell were at the Colonies to stave off the necessity of taking possession of the land! But Englishmen had settled themselves in such numbers on her shores that England was forced to send forth the means of governing her own children. The same thing happened, as I have attempted to tell, both in British Kafraria and Natal. The same thing happened the other day in the Fiji Islands. The same feeling, acting in an inverse way,—repudiating the chicks instead of taking them in,—induced us to give over the Transvaal and the Orange Free State to Republicanism. Our repudiation of the former has lasted but for a quarter of a century, and there are many now of British race to be found in South Africa who are confident that we shall have to take the Orange Free State in among the brood in about the same period from her birth. British rule in distant parts, much as it is abused, is so precious a blessing that men will have it, and the old hen is forced to stretch her poor old wings again and still again.
This I hold to be the real and unanswerable excuse for what we have done in Griqualand West and not our treaty with Waterboer. As far as right devolving from any treaty goes I think that we have the best of it,—but not so much the best, that even could I recognize those treaties as conveying all they are held to convey, I should declare our title to be complete. But, that such treaties are for the most part powerless when pressure comes, is proved by our own doings and by those of other nations all round the world. We have just annexed the Transvaal,—with the approbation of both sides in the House of Commons. Our excuse is that though the Transvaal was an independent State she was so little able to take care of herself that we were obliged to enter in upon her, as the law does on the estate of a lunatic. But how would it have been if the Transvaal instead of the Orange Free State had been our competitor for the government of the Diamond Fields? If we can justify ourselves in annexing a whole Republic surely we should not have scrupled to take the assumed dependency of a Republic. In such doings we have to reconcile ourselves to expedience, however abhorrent such a doctrine may be to us in our own private affairs. Here it was expedient that a large body, chiefly of Englishmen, should, for their own comfort and well being, be brought under rule. If in following out the doctrine any abstract injustice was done, it was not against the Orange Free State, but against the tribes whom no Waterboer and no Adam Kok could in truth be authorized to hand over either to British or to Dutch Republican rule.
For a while I was minded to go closely into the question of Kok v. Waterboer and to put forward what might probably have been a crude expression of the right either of the one Hottentot or of the other to make over at any rate his power and his privileges of government. But I convinced myself, when on the spot, that neither could have much right, and that whatever right either might have, was so far buried in the obscurity of savagery in general, that I could not possibly get at the bottom of it so as to form any valid opinion. Books have been written on the subject, on the one side and on the other, which have not I think been much studied. Were I to write no more than a chapter on it my readers would pass it by. The intelligence of England will not engage itself on unravelling the geographical facts of a line of demarcation made between two Hottentot Chieftains when the land was comparatively valueless, and when such line could only be signified by the names of places of which the exact position can hardly even now be ascertained. When subsequently I read the report which the Secretary of State for the Colonies made to the Governor of the Cape Colony on 5 August 1876, informing the Governor of the terms under which he and the President of the Orange Free State had agreed to compromise the matter, I was glad to find that he, in his final discussions with the President, had come to the same conclusion. I here quote the words in which Lord Carnarvon expressed himself to Sir Henry Barkly;—and I would say that I fully agree with him were it not that such testimony might seem to be impertinent. “At the earlier interviews Mr. Brand repeatedly expressed his desire to submit proof of the claim preferred by his Government to a great part of Griqualand West. I had however determined from the first that there would be no advantage in entering upon such on enquiry. It was obvious that there could be no prospect of our coming to an agreement on a question which teemed with local details and personal contentions.”
The Secretary of State goes on to explain the circumstances under which the £90,000 are to be given. I will confess for myself that I should almost have preferred to have stuck to the territory without paying the money. If it be our “destiny” to rule people I do not think that we ought to pay for assuming an office which we cannot avoid. The Secretary of State in this report strongly reasserts the British right to Griqualand West,—though he acknowledges that he cannot hope by mere eloquence to convince President Brand of that right. “As you think you are wronged,” the Secretary goes on to argue, “we will consent to compensate the wrong which we feel sure you have not suffered, but which you think you have endured, so that there need be no quarrel between us.” Probably it was the easiest way out of the difficulty; but there is something in it to regret. It must of course be understood that the £90,000 will not be paid by the British taxpayer, but will be gathered from the riches of Griqualand West herself.
On the 27 October 1871 the Diamond Fields were declared to be British territory. But such a declaration, even had it not been opposed by the Free State and the friends of the Free State, would by no means have made the course of British rule plain and simple. There have, from that day to this, arisen a series of questions to settle and difficulties to solve which, as they crop up to the enquirer’s mind, would seem to have been sufficient to have overcome the patience of any Colonial Secretary even though he had not another Colony on his shoulders. If there was any Colonial sinner,—Secretary, Governor, or subordinate,—who carried away by the lust of empire had sought to gratify his ambition by annexing Griqualand West, he must certainly have repented himself in sackcloth and ashes before this time (the end of 1877) when the vexed question of annexation or non-annexation to the Cape Colony is hardly yet settled. When the territory was first accepted by Great Britain it was done on an understanding that the Cape Colony should take it and rule it, and pay for it,—or make it pay for itself. The Colonial Secretary of the day declared in an official dispatch that he would not consent to the annexation unless, “the Cape Parliament would personally bind itself to accept the responsibility of governing the territory which was to be united to it, together with the entire maintenance of any force which might be necessary for the preservation of order.” It must be presumed therefore that the lust for empire did not exist in Downing Street. The Cape Parliament did so far accede to the stipulation made by the Secretary of State, as to pass a resolution of assent. They would agree,—seeing that British rule could not in any other way be obtained. But an intermediate moment was necessary,—a moment which should admit of the arrangement of terms,—between the absolute act of assumption by Great Britain and the annexation by the Colony. That moment has been much prolonged, and has not yet, as I write, been brought to an end. So that the lust for rule over the richest diamond fields in the world seems hardly to be very strong even in the Colony. Though the Parliament of the Colony had assented to the requisition from Downing Street, it afterwards,—not unnaturally,—declined to take the matter in hand till the Government at home had settled its difficulties with the Orange Free State. The Free State had withdrawn whatever officers it had had on the Fields, and had remonstrated. That difficulty is now solved;—and the Cape Colony has passed a bill shewing on what terms it will annex the territory. The terms are very unpopular in the district,—as indeed is the idea of annexation to the Cape Colony at all. Griqualand would very much prefer to continue a separate dependency, with a little Council of its own. The intention however of the mother country and of the Colony has been too clearly expressed for doubt on that subject. They are both determined that the annexation shall take place, and the Colony will probably be able to dictate the terms.